are you talking about? I haven't done anything! Let me go!'
'Don't mind Dex,' said Zoplin. 'He's touched with the giblets, as I've told you already. As a rock has worms, so Dex has the giblets. Giblets and jism. A disease from the dust.'
Persuaded by a stouter kick from Dog Java, the beggar Dex released the imprisoned ankle and, laughing (the guttural noise could have been mistaken for a symptom of strangulation, but both Hatch and Dog Java conjectured it correctly as an expression of amusement) the beggar Dex retreated to the dust from whence he had come.
Dog Java stood in the sunlight.
Sweating.
Hatch looked him up and down, lazily, wondering what was wrong with him. Maybe he had a fever, for not only was he sweating – he was also trembling. Meanwhile, the beggars were still ontalking.
'Friend Dex has more than the giblets,' said Grim. 'He has scrofula, scurvy, bleach-bone, ringworm and a touch of the hairy bubonics. But you have the teeth!'
'So,' said Zoplin, using the asset in question to gnaw a piece of sugar cane filched from the nearby sugar juice stall. 'So. Beseech me as Lord of Dentition. Beseech or be burgled! Cry slave, slave, or be dust-drowned in camel dung!'
'Beseechingness be unfitting when I seek but the common property of our commune,' said Grim. 'You admit to the teeth, so give them!'
'I admit them and keep them,' said Zoplin, 'for it's not for you to be eating dog, not with these teeth or others, for dog be forbidden for slaughter.'
'Since when?' said Grim.
'It is written,' said Lord X'dex Paspilion, 'I cannot read it, mind, but it is written, and mark that the worms have the truth of it, be the bones as yet unwritten, be the pea-soup unsalted, the eagle unwormed, in blood it is written, in shadows and bones – '
'Bones!' said Grim. 'It's flesh I'm eating, or would be, had Zoplin the decency to give me the teeth.'
'That I cannot,' said Zoplin. 'For thus it is written.'
There were a pause, while the other beggars considered this. Hatch spoke into the pause, addressing the brown-skinned Combat Cadet who stood before him in a virtual paralysis of quick-breathing sweat and muscle- knotted shuddering.
'Dog? Dog Java? Are you all right?'
At which Dog Java's eyes rolled up to expose the whites, and he fell to the ground in a faint. His body shuddered in imitation of epilepsy, as a body often will when its owner faints. Then that body lay still, its breathing easing. Hatch regarded the body with faint surprise, but with no greater emotion. The beggars meanwhile ignored the event, though all three were so sharp that they must have heard Dog Java's collapse clearly, and have understood its import. Grim had considered Master Zoplin's last statement in detail and depth, and gave his response into the sun-hot stillness:
'Written?' said Grim. 'We were talking teeth, not writing!'
'Teeth were talking while writing was scribing,' said Lord X'dex. 'With writing done, let me say it is written – '
'Written?' said Grim. 'It is written? And you have the reading of it?'
'With the Eye, yes,' said Lord X'dex.
This Eye of which he made mention was a small device which was the common property of the three, and was by no means to be confused with the Eye of Delusions, that much larger affair set above the lockway in the natural amphitheater at the southern end of Scuffling Road.
'With the Eye or without the Eye,' said Grim, 'I doubt you can read, for you were born illiterate, and I have not heard that you have improved yourself since.'
Hatch then feared the two beggars would fall to fighting, something they did from time to time for sheer amusement. Not for the first time, he wondered what it would be like to be a beggar, with an infinity of useless time at his disposal. It seemed to Hatch that he had never been free of time demands and urgent responsibilities in his whole life – and that he had never been more burdened than now.
'The greater secrets have ever been hidden from you and yours,' said Lord X'dex, addressing himself to Beggar Grim, would-be devourer of deceased caninity. 'But still, it is written that in the month before Dog Day, no dog may be slaughtered in Dalar ken Halvar. From which I find you in breach of the law for possession of yon corpse, hence order it surrendered to the lord of the Greater Tower, who has a dispositional dispensation for the calorificatory combustion or consumption of all foodstuffs or winestuffs, provenant or purchasory, diligent or demised.'
While this chattering was going on, a camel came slow-stilt striding, southbound for the kinema, bearing its owner to the entertainments of the Eye of Delusions. Hatch exerted himself to the extent of dragging Dog Java clear of the red dust roadway, then let him lie.
'It's syphilis,' said Grim, at last diagnosing the inspiration of the discursive pyrotechnics which obsessed and possessed his brother-in-rags, the mighty Lord X'dex Paspilion.
Which made Hatch think: maybe Dog Java had a venereal disease. For if it was sheer emotional stress that had upset him to the point of fainting, then the pox might be the cause. But – surely! – there was no pox in Dalar ken Halvar which was beyond the powers of the Combat College cure-all clinic, to which Dog had free access. So it must be something else. And Hatch thought he had better be finding out exactly what that something else was, for he presumed from Dog Java's earlier behavior that Dog wanted to consult him on something, but that the something was an extremely sensitive personal matter.
'Dog Java,' said Hatch, seeing the Combat Cadet's eyes flutter open. 'How is it?'
Dog Java made no immediate response, but shortly sat up, looking weak and strained.
Hatch had no wish to add Dog Java's problems to his own, but had very little choice in the matter. In the ordinary course of events, Senior Combat College students such as Hatch were supposed to make themselves available to help juniors such as Dog Java; and since Hatch was a candidate for the Combat College instructorship, he could not afford to default from such responsibility, for any default might prejudice Paraban Senk against him.
'It is syphilis,' said Grim, speaking into the long pause.
'It is syphilis, as I said.'
'Syphilis?' said Master Zoplin, spitting chewed sugar cane. 'Why no, it is dog. By your own testimony, dog. Dog fresh killed, so you due to be killed likewise, a murderer of the not-to-be murdered. I appoint me your executioner.'
At the word 'executioner', Dog Java abruptly got to his feet. With a dramatic gesture, he drew a knife. He staggered slightly, but kept his balance. Just. The sweat was sheening and shining on his forehead. He was again trembling as if in a fever. Hatch was seriously alarmed. He thought Dog Java was likely to faint again, and accidentally fall on his knife. Or else – 'Ah! Condemned, am I?' said Grim. 'Then give me the teeth, that I may die with a full belly at least.'
'Dog,' said Hatch, with firm gentleness. 'I think it would be better if you gave me the teeth.'
Dog opened his mouth, closed it.
'Forgive me,' said Hatch, realizing he had blundered in his speech. 'I meant the knife, not the teeth. The knife. We don't want someone to get hurt, do we?'
With that, Asodo Hatch – who had diagnosed Dog Java's death-tension as suicidal intent – got to his feet. He did this slowly and with due deliberation, making no sudden moves which might precipitate a felo de se, for Hatch feared that Dog Java's self-inflicted death would count as a black mark on Hatch's own record. If Dog Java had some cause to commit suicide, then Asodo Hatch was determined that the low-born Pang-bred Combat Cadet would not compound the crime of self-murder by making the act an embarrassment to Startrooper Hatch.
Gently, Hatch removed the knife from Dog Java's unresisting hand.
'Thank you,' said Hatch. 'Sit. Come on, sit down.'
But Dog Java abruptly turned and fled, leaving Hatch in possession of a heavy knife which shone bright-bladed in the sun. Hatch watched the fleeing Dog. He knew that he should by rights go after the Combat Cadet, for Dog was so plainly upset about something that it was Hatch's duty to actively counsel him.
Though there were never more than half a thousand students training in the Combat College at any one time, the multiple stresses and conflicts that the students endured were so severe that on average there was one student suicide every year. In his time, Hatch had effectively counseled three students in danger of succumbing to
